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Month: April 2009

I found this picture on Wendell Dryden’s Curbside blog when I was looking up Literacy in Canada. Literacy teaching seems to be all happening there. I was wondering if this could work in London. Could we do book runs and soup runs? Wendell Dryden says he is a poet, painter and literacy worker living in St. John New Brunswick. This gives me great hope. I am wondering what books would be most popular and which would stay at the bottom of the trolley in Hoxton, London, UK.

‘The quotidian greys and Indian reds of skies and brick walls are punctuated with the unsaturated hues of pink garden roses, blue ice cream, sherbet lemon and crocheted wool.

This is how the press release describes the colours Katrina uses. The crocheted wool makes me feel very uncomfortable, could snag your finger nails on that. Luckily I saw no such thing when I arrived far too early.

The paintings would look good in a modern space, hung on concrete rather than on a painted surface. These colours against concrete would be great. I preferred the paintings to the prints. Paint gives the density of colour, the red reminded me of an Italian rasperry sorbet. You could also mention a sixties exhibition catalogue. Made me also think of the way people talk about the atlas; each country has to be a different colour from its neighbour but they only use a few colours. The kind of thing you’re supposed to know on University Challenge.

On the way home I got distracted when I watched man on phone buying half a pint of milk with his credit card at the automated Tesco.

When I arrived this morning in my office I found myself staring and wondering at a picture I have of Dorothy Day in Staten Island. She looks so strong and agile with her huge fringe and big feet. I was looking for the same picture but I found this one which is even better. It shows her looking young and a bit confused in that big hat. She’ll encourage me to some acts of resistance maybe however small.

OK time for me to add my tuppence halfpenny worth. I was stuck indoors at work so couldn’t really join in apart from speed walking down to Broadgate where I saw a lot of people in their smart casual, can’t assume they were bankers that would be sloppy. But I’ve been listening to others successful stories like Ciaron I but now watching black bird on apple tree with huge worm in his mouth. Is this the same bird that’s been waking me up at four in the morning? I blame the street lights. It’s always the same on bank holiday weekends, the partying echoes round the neighbourhood, even if it’s only one party. Like sleeping on a French mountainside, you can hear what’s happening down in the valley.